Peter Munro

Wallabies great and NSW Rugby chairman Nick Farr-Jones has questioned the future of the elite GPS sports competition, in light of the 101-nil thrashing of Newington College by former close rival Scots.

Farr-Jones said drastic change was needed to Sydney's most prestigious schools association to protect boys from harm and to stop such mismatches. Private schools should also cap the number of athletes on lucrative sports scholarships to ensure a level playing field, he added.

Thrashing: The Scots College rugby team beat Newington College 101-0 on the weekend. Photo: Louise Kennerley

"I don't like mismatches," he said. "I don't think it builds character. I don't think it is good for anyone. My major concern is safety. If there are significant weight and strength differences [between teams] then there are safety issues and we have to be careful of that."

NSW Rugby was considering a proposal under which GPS rugby would be replaced by a broader and more balanced competition that included other schools and junior rugby clubs, Farr-Jones said. The proposal had won support from some schools and clubs, he said.

"It could be a GPS team playing a CHS [state school] team or playing a CAS [private school] team or playing a club team," he said. "We need to look at a better way of doing things ... so we do have matches that participants enjoy playing and parents enjoy watching."

Schools should also restrict the awarding of controversial sports scholarships to about 20 per cent of players in any particular team, Farr-Jones added.

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This month, The Scots College withdrew a new student recently recruited from Canada from its snowsports team, after claims from rival schools that he was ineligible to compete. The 14-year-old athlete, who was brought in by Scots after competing in the northern hemisphere, won individual gold at the Sydney Interschools Championships.

In an email to parents, Scots insisted the boy was eligible to compete but acknowledged the "perception ... that it could open the way for other schools in years following to invite numbers of international athletes to compete for them ... to the possible detriment of Australian athletes".

In 2013, the Bellevue Hill school's top basketball teams were boycotted amid claims from five GPS schools that it had paid inducements to many players, in breach of the GPS code of practice. Scots denied the claims.

Last Saturday's result between Scots and Newington, co-winners of the 2013 season, has reignited concerns within the GPS. "Any scoreline which is massively unbalanced diminishes the educational value of the experience," said The King's School headmaster Timothy Hawkes.

Scots headmaster Ian Lambert was not available for comment.

Scots first XV has piled on 287 points in the first four rounds of this season. Against Newington, Scots players scored 15 tries in a performance one parent said "was like watching the All Blacks, it was so beautifully put together".

The growing disparity between some teams in the GPS has seen Sydney Grammar and Sydney Boys High withdraw from the top-level rugby competition, citing safety fears for their smaller players. Farr-Jones, a Newington old boy, suggested other schools could follow suit. "I think headmasters should be looking at primarily issues of safety," he said.

Former Wallabies player Phil Kearns, who also went to Newington, said such lopsided results were not great for the game. He suggested that one option for schools to consider was an "all or nothing approach, where you can have as many scholarships as you want or none at all".